Compare And Contrast Canadian Culture And American Culture

Since the country’s conception in 1867, Canada has lived in the shadow of it’s southerly neighbour, the United States of America. Through the years, what started out as a country with very distinct culture has morphed and become Americanized. Historically speaking, American influence has had a great economical impact on Canada. Speaking about the Americanization of Canada, Pierre Trudeau, former Prime Minister of Canada, has said, “Americans should never underestimate the constant pressure on Canada which the mere presence of the United states has produced…” This pressure has changed the way Canadians live and conduct business. This pressure has Americanized the Canadian economy. American culture has a very far reaching effect on Canada with many trickle down effects. Americanization of the Canadian economy has lead to the American control of the Canada’s corporate structure, Canadian dependence on American capital, turned the Canadian economy into a mirror image of the American economy, and has led to loss of

Due the the geographic reason, Canadian culture is often seen as similar to the United States. For instance, language, political beliefs, food, religion and social well-being. I agree that most part of the American popular culture is being adopted by most Canadians because of the powerful media such as movies, films and books are produced by the American. Massey-Leveque, who is a chancellor of the University of Toronto, argued that “ Canada is cultural dependent in its ‘uncritical use of American education philosophy”(as cited in Gasher, M., Skinner, D., & Lorimer,R., 2012,p.196). Hollywood, one of the biggest and most famous film corporations in the world, is devastating part of the Canadian culture. The reason is that by multi-billion

The success of Canadian soldiers had given them sense of national pride and identity. In the soaring 1920's, all types of entertainment and leisure were developed, the two major forms of entertainment being film and radio. American radio companies diminished Canada’s sense of social autonomy because they were far too big for Canadian radio stations to compete with. As a result, many Canadians tuned into American stations for entertainment and their news. Furthermore, the film industry was also dominated by the Americans and Canadian-made films could not compete with productions from the big studios in the United States.

Canada is a democratic country. Canadians elect the parliament and the Prime Minister. But because Canada is a market economy, jobs, prices and the economic situation depends on big businesses. The fact that American companies own such a huge part of Canadian industry that it puts them in control of business in Canada. In other words a straight economical dependence, where Canadian people are no longer in control of things in their own country. A good example is a situation when American corporation buys a Canadian company. They take Canadian workers only for low paid positions. Most of the managers, accountants, sales executives who really control big business operations in Canada are Americans. Most of the times the specialists who work in American owned companies in Canada are also brought from America on contracts. In this case Canada is too depended to act the way it wants without support from the U.S.

For example, most magazines focus on American celebrities and American trends. People’s magazine is very popular, with 3 527 541 copies paid and verified. It’s an American magazine that talks about celebrity gossip. Reader’s Digest is also quite popular, with 4 288 529 copies paid and verified. It’s a general interest family based magazine.1 There is also Twist, a magazine popular among teens. It teaches them about all the different beauty and fashion trends that are currently popular.2 However, these magazines almost never touch upon what’s happening in Canada, as people assume that what’s going on in the USA must also be happening in Canada. While that’s not completely true, events happening in the USA will likely affect Canada in one way or another. Pierre Elliotte Trudeau even stated, “Living next to the United States in some way like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even tempered the beast: one is affected by every twitch and grunt.”3 Finally, Canada covers a lot of what’s happening in the USA but the states don’t do the same with Canada. As Canadian author Margaret Atwood said, “The boarder separating the two countries is like a one-way mirror through which Canadians can see the United States but Americans can’t see

It’s a pretty standard sociological equation that Canada has mastered. Free market proponents seem to think that if Canadians want US media, they shouldn’t have a legal choice, and should be forced to accept the violence and crime that seems to follow it. The argument goes that it should be an individual’s choice to view these things and they should also have the decisiveness and discernment to know what is acceptable in society, which makes sense, however, Western influence has a tendency to flood markets without leaving much of a choice in how to make such a decision. Thus, those who would wish to avoid such smut would be forced to see it every time they leave the house as we are here in the

The Canadian government identified magazines as an important touchstone of Canadian natural identify. If the government recognizes this as a national identify, then those who purchase it are showing loyalty to their father land and preserving their culture for the younger generation.

The U.S through its reputation has influenced the world through their pop culture to furthermore emphasize Canadian stereotypes. This in turn ruins Canadian identity, as this emphasization replaces original Canadian culture, and heritage, with exaggerated stereotypes.

Ever since the 1950’s more of the American culture has been known to influence Canadian ways of living through the media.

Canada is considered to be a cultural mosaic, where all cultures are embraced opposed to a melting pot where it is expected to adopt one culture. Government regulated media is more favourable than policies based off of self-regulated solutions when addressing Canada’s media industries and cultural needs. Canadians place importance on national identity and without government regulated policies, the content in the media would have minimal Canadian information. According to the Aird Commission, when Canada’s media was operating through private enterprise, many stations expressed conflicting content, however, with state regulated media, broadcasting allows the nation to have a unified vocation. One unified message being sent to the nations citizens is more beneficial than multiple broadcasts on differentiated and insignificant information.

The United States vs Canadian magazine dispute dated back as far as 1920 when the Canadian Government in an attempt to curtail the negative implications of foreign culture importation into their national cultural interest. During this period the Canadian government imposed protective tariffs on foreign magazines with a view to reducing their dominance in effecting change in their cultural heritage. By the year 1965, further prohibition was imposed on the importation of split-run editions of foreign magazines published outside the shores Canada. Observers of the development believed that the measures were effective tools necessary to protect the country’s drowning domestically produced magazine, which offers publication in Canadian first official

I am not so sure that the Canadian government was motivated by genuine desire in order to protect the Canadian culture, instead I believe that the Canadian government was under the pressure of domestic publishers who were faced the danger of competition with the huge industry of U.S magazines. Of course there is always the chance that a small group of politicians were truly motivated by genuine desire to protect the Canadian culture, but in my opinion the majority of politicians were motivated only by the sense to protect the domestic publishers and the interests of Canadian business. Another element that can support this theory is the market share of domestic magazines. Only the 11% of the consumers are interested in Canadian magazines, with such a small

Canadian and American cultural views were different which was proved because one is multicultural and the other is not. Canada was known as “mosaic” which means immigrants from any ethnic group were accepted here and were allowed to practice their religion. Therefore, they have a double identity ,meaning they are their ethnic group before a Canadian citizen as in Japanese-Canadian, Asian Canadian and so on . Whereas ,American culture was known as the “melting pot “, where they accept other cultures however they encouraged their citizens to give up their original culture ( Wells ,10 and 11 ). Canadian’s usually describe themselves as “NOT AMERICAN“(Wells,35) . Many Americans view Canada as a positive nation and as a better environment to live in then the United States . A legal sectary from Gastonia ,North Carolina said “Canada’s such a terrific place, I’d move there tomorrow if I could” (Wells, 35). This proves that Americans want to come to Canada since it is a safer environment due to it’s unique culture. Canadians are recognized as more modest, less aggressive and more down to earth then their southern neighbors (Wells,35).

I suspect that the real motive of the Canadian government was not to protect Canadian culture in this dispute with the US. But rather, it seemed to concern more with political and economic factors. As appeared in the article, the Canadian government finally gave in and went on to settle the dispute (The Levin Institute, [1]). To me, that seems somewhat irrational to suddenly give up on one’s culture like they did, when the US threated to retaliate with trade barriers. As a speculation, I believe the dispute was motived by political and economic concerns. The Canadian government was attempting to defend the local media from a total domination by foreign media since it implies that Canadian businesses will be paying foreign corporations to have their products and services advertised on a magazine, even when local magazines have the capacity to provide the same type of service. Simply put, the concern seems to be related to the higher outflows of capital.

Canadians have shown through their sales that they like foreign magazines, so maybe the Canadians should try infus-ing their culture another way or step up their magazine game. 5 Is it fair to levy extra taxes against foreign magazines—which have the effect of forcing Canadian purchasers of foreign magazines to subsidize local publications? If a country is involved in the World Trade Organization then they should expect the ability to export to other countries who are also involved in the World Trade Organization, but also expect other markets to import into their country as well. There should be a flat rate tax for each country so that everyone is on the same page and so something like this does not happen